The Massacre of Fort Dearborn at Chicago

From Harper’s:

Gathered from the traditions of the Indian tribes engaged in the massacre, and from the published accounts. Originally from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 98, no. 586, pp. 649-656, March 1899. By Simon Pokagon, Chief of the Pokaoon band of Pattawapomie Indians.

Gathered from the traditions of the Indian tribes engaged in the massacre, and from the published accounts. Originally from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, vol. 98, no. 586, pp. 649-656, March 1899. By Simon Pokagon, Chief of the Pokaoon band of Pattawapomie Indians. My father, Chief Leopold Pokagon, was present at the massacre of Fort Dearborn in 1812, and I have received the traditions of the massacre from our old men. Since my youth I have associated with people of the white race, and sympathize with them as well as with my own people. I am in a position to deal justly with both. Whatever I may say against the dealings of white men with the Indians, I trust no reader for a moment will think that Pokagon does not know, or does not appreciate, what is now being done for the remnant of his race. He certainly does, and with an overflowing heart of gratitude and pride he reviews the lives of those noble men and women who in the face of stubborn prejudice have boldly advocated the rights of his race in the ears of politicians and government officials. In order to present the facts as nearly as possible, I shall rely on the written history; but the earliest detailed account I have been able to find was written by a woman, who claimed the story was told her by an eye-witness twenty years after occurrence, and she did not publish it until twenty-two years later. Thus the account was traditional when first published.

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